Moradabad, Dec. 03 (Punjab Mail) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Opposition on Saturday for criticising the Centre’s decision to junk high-value notes, claiming credit for electrification of villages and making a development pitch to voters ahead of next year’s polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing a BJP rally in western UP’s Moradabad, Modi said he would continue his fight against corruption and warned people trying to park their illegal incomes in poor people’s jan dhan accounts.
“I want to tell the poor in whose account money has been deposited, ‘don’t touch that money and ask for proof if they (those who have deposited the money) insist,” he said.
“I have no other high command. The people of the country are my high command.” He attacked opposition parties who have pointed to long queues outside banks and ATMs as proof of the government’s poor planning over the past three weeks since the scrapping of Rs500 and Rs1,000 was announced.
“For 70 years, the people of the country queued up for essential items. This queue (outside bank branches) is the last queue to end all the queues,” he said, to thunderous applause. He was looking for ways to put in jail those who were using jan dhan accounts to deposit illegal cash, he added. The prime minister has been at the forefront of the BJP’s election campaign in India’s most populous state that goes to the polls early next year. The saffron party has been out of power in the state for more than a decade and is locked in a tough fight with the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.